The Facts and Stats on "33,000 Denominations"
The 20,000 30,000 numbers and David Barrett's statistics
Part II

The Facts and Stats on "33,000
Denominations"
by P

Now for a few facts and stats from the actual source: World
Christian Encyclopedia by Barrett, Kurian, Johnson (Oxford
Univ Press, 2nd edition, 2001).

The source does refer to
33000+ total "Christian" denominations, but it defines the
word "denomination" as an organized Christian group within a
specific country:

'Denominations.
A denomination is defined in this Encyclopedia as an organized
aggregate of worship centers or congregations of similar
ecclesiastical tradition within a specific country;
i.e. as an organized Christian church or tradition or religious
group or community of believers, within a specific country,
whose component congregations and members are called by the same
denominational name in different areas, regarding themselves as
one autonomous Christian church distinct from other denominations,
churches and traditions. As defined here, world Christianity
consists of 6 major ecclesiastico-cultural blocs, divided into 300
major ecclesiastical traditions, composed
of over 33,000 distinct denominations in 238 countries,
these denominations themselves being composed of over 3,400,000
worship centers, churches or congregations.'
(Barrett et al, volume 1, page 16, Table 1-5, emphasis added)

So
we have, according to Barrett's Encyclopedia:

a denomination is defined as existing within a
specific country

there are 33,000+ total
of these "Christian denominations" in 238 total
countries

These 33,000 are subdivided into "6 major
ecclesiastico-cultural mega-blocs", and ordering them by
denomination size
we have (I am rounding up or down slightly for convenience, using
year 2000 figures) :

That's where the 33,000 figure comes from. If you count the
"mega-bloc" of "Protestants" only it is 9000 / 33000 or 27% of
the total. However, if you combine Protestants with Independents
and Anglicans (
[22000 + 9000 + 168] / 33000) it is 94% of the total or 31,000+
. We will see
below that most (about 97%) of the "Independent" churches are indeed
Protestants. Now that we have that settled, I will examine what
the source says about each of these "mega-blocs." All of
the information below is found on pages 16-18 (volume 1) of the World
Christian Encyclopedia (2001, 2nd edition).

from Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press, 19 May 2001

Since adding a religion doctorate from Columbia University to his technical background, he has spent 40 years systematizing information on world religions, a calling he discovered while assigned as an Anglican missionary in Africa. Now 73, Barrett recently culminated his oddly remarkable career with publication of the second edition of his global accounting of faiths and the faithful -- trends, details and his best estimated count of believers of all religions in each of 238 nations and territories.

Never has there been such a thorough reference as the two large volumes, running 1,699 pages, of the
World Christian Encyclopedia, published by Oxford University Press. Barrett has doggedly visited most of the lands in person, collecting raw material, including national census figures and United Nations data, and recruiting the 444 specialists who feed him material. Among them: Vatican missions librarian Willi Henkel and editor J. Gordon Melton of the
Encyclopedia of American Religions. Barrett's encyclopedia sought to count each human being in each religion and religious subcategory in each country as of 1900, 1970, 1990, 1995 and 2000, with projections to 2025.

The 2001 edition, successor to his
1982 first edition, which took a decade to compile, identifies 10,000 distinct religions, of which 150 have 1 million or more followers.
Within Christianity, he counts 33,820 denominations.

Barrett also calculates religious populations for the
Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year, standard estimates that are used in turn by the
World Almanac and innumerable journalists. Such numbers are always debatable, but they're the best available. "We don't really have any rivals," Barrett says. "That's the problem."

Let's deal with these first,
since this is the largest mega-bloc (22000+ "denominations" of the
total 33000+).
These are broken down into various large groups, and their lists and
numbers span from the bottom of page 16, through page 17, and most of
page 18. I'm not going to type all of these since the list is quite long
-- much longer than any of the groupings in the other mega-blocs which
are listed below in full. I will quote a major sampling of these
"Independent" Christian groups, and still try to cover the
whole list:

African Independent Apostolic

Black American Apostolic

Filipino Apostolic

Indian Apostolic

another 8 groups have "Apostolic"

African Independent Charismatic

Black American Charismatic

Chinese Charismatic

another 14 groups have "Charismatic" or "Neocharismatic"

African Independent Full Gospel

Black American Full Gospel

Chinese Full Gospel

another 10 groups have "Full Gospel"

three have something-"grassroots"

another 20 groups have "house-church network" or
"cell-based network"

five have "Messianic"-something

another 14 are something-"neocharismatic"

another 12 are something-"Oneness pentecostal"

another 18 are something-"pentecostal"

another 12 are something-"radio/TV believers [or
"network"]" (i.e. the
"pastor" for these independent Christians is some
personality on radio or TV)

final 2 on page 17 are something-"Spiritual"

then we have a couple deliverence/pentecostal groups

Word of Faith / Prosperity groups

a couple of "mixed traditions"

some "Zionist" groups

Independent Anglicans or Anglo-Catholic groups in both Catholic and
Protestant directions

Independent Adventists

apocalyptic or eschatological ("end times") groups

Independent Baptists

British-Israelites

Hidden Buddhist believers in Christ

some Independent Orthodox groups

independent Christian Brethren (Plymouth Brethren)

schismatic Conservative Catholics

Independent Congregational, Congregationalists

Independent Disciple, Restorationist, Christian

Independent Dunkers (Tunker, Dipper)

Independent Exclusive Brethren (Closed, Strict)

episcopi vagantes ("wandering" bishops-at-large, very small under 100
members)

While the World Christian Encyclopedia does refer to "only" 9000 or so denominations as "Protestant" the source also includes
22,000 or so denominations as "Independent" and if you look at the names of
these "Independent" groups above, you'll see most of them are clearly
Protestant (the "Apostolic", the
"Charismatic", the "Full Gospel", the house or home
churches, the pentecostals, probably all the TV/radio
Christians, and all the independents of other Protestant denominations
listed, etc). None of these are Catholic or Orthodox, but there appear
to be some renegade Orthodox, Anglicans, and schismatic Catholics among
the "Independents." The largest of these Independent
Christians are "White-led charismatic" (17,478,000
members [year 1995], in 2856 separate denominations [year 2000]), "African
independent
pentecostal" (18,943,000 members [year 1995], in 5385 separate
denominations [year 2000]), and "African neocharismatic of mixed traditions"
(1,500,000 members [year 1995], in 3333 separate denominations
[year 2000]). These three
are all Protestant (neither Catholic, nor Orthodox) and account for more
than half (53%) of the 22,000 "Independent" denominations.

Another
section of these "Independents" with a decent number of
denominations include (ordered by smallest to largest denominations,
year 2000):

Adding up these Independent denominations we get 8,497 which is
another 39% of the total of 22,000 "Independents." All
of these are clearly "Protestant" in theology as well
-- charismatics, pentecostals, evangelicals, methodists, reformed/presbyterians,
full gospel, "nondenominational", baptists, and Oneness
pentecostals (note that Barrett includes "mainline"
Oneness groups in the Protestant mega-bloc, not in the
"Marginal" mega-bloc). So that gives us 92% ( =53%
+ 39% ) of these Independent groups accounted for as Protestant.
The rest (the remaining 8% of the 22000 denominations) are
smaller than the above, and the majority of these are Protestant as
well.

The only other large "Catholic" independent group is 435
"denominations" labeled "Conservative Catholic
(schism ex Rome)" or those "radical Traditionalist"
Catholics in schism with Rome which I'll admit appears to be a
large number (considering there are only 242 total "Roman
Catholic denominations" -- see below). However, looking at the
total numbers of Roman Catholics in the world (over 1 billion)
this dwarfs the relatively small numbers (i.e. 4,518,000 members
[year 1995], in 435 "denominations" [year 2000]) in these schismatical
groups. And at least Catholics know who is in "schism"
whereas a Protestant evangelical, fundamentalist, charismatic or
pentecostal (i.e. all the above groups which claim to follow the
Bible) can't be in "schism" to the Bible, since the Bible by
itself doesn't tell us who is in schism.

Another way to determine the
percentage of Protestants/Anglicans in these Independents is to count and exclude the "Catholic"
and "Orthodox" ones -- i.e. groups which appear to have come out
of or split off from the Catholic Church or Orthodox Churches, and apparently still claim to be
in some sense "Catholic" or "Orthodox" and are non-Protestant
/ non-Anglican. These are, ordered from largest to smallest
denominations, year 2000 numbers:

435 Conservative Catholic (schism ex-Rome), the biggest group of these
already mentioned

32 Independent Russian Orthodox, second largest

30 Orthodox sect/sectarian

27 Liberal Catholic (Theosophical, Masonic, Gnostic), questionable what this means, but I'll include them

26 Old Catholic (i.e. split with Rome after Vatican Council I)

25 Old Believer, Old Ritualist (the "Old
Believers" are a Russian Orthodox sect)

24 Independent Ukrainian Orthodox

23 Reformed Orthodox (uncanonical)

16 Reformed Catholic (retaining Roman Catholic claims)

8 Old Calendarist (Authentic Orthodox)

6 True Orthodox (conservative Russian Orthodox)

5 Independent Serbian Orthodox

5 Latin-rite Catholic

5 Independent Assyrian or Nestorian

3 Independent Romanian Orthodox

2 Independent Estonian Orthodox

2 Independent Greek Orthodox

1 Independent Bulgarian Orthodox

1 Independent Byzantine rite

1 Independent Hungarian Orthodox

1 Independent Macedonian Orthodox

1 Independent Moldavian Orthodox

These are all found on page 18. Adding these up we get a whopping 679 which is 3% of
the 22,000 "Independent" denominations. That leaves us approximately 97%
of the Independents as Protestant/Anglican, with a tiny number of
"Marginal Christians" (i.e. 8 Jehovah's Witnesses breakaway groups, and a couple "mind science" cults).
The "Irvingites" on page 17, although called "New Apostolic,
Catholic
Apostolic, Old Apostolic," are actually an Anglican /
Presbyterian / Adventist, i.e. Protestant sect, neither Catholic nor Orthodox.

So we take the 9000
Protestant denominations plus 21,340
(97% of 22,000) plus 168
(Anglicans) =30,000+ total
Protestant/Anglican denominations.

The second largest group of
"denominations" are Protestants. The encyclopedia breaks these
down into major groupings like this:

Adventist

Baptist

Christian Brethren (Plymouth Brethren, Open only)

Congregational, Congregationalist

Disciple, Restorationist, Restorationist Baptist, Christian

Dunker (Tunker), Dipper, German Baptist, Brethren

Exclusive Brethren (Plymouth Brethren, Closed, Strict)

Anglican Evangelical, Independent Evangelical

Fundamentalist

Holiness (Conservative Methodist, Wesleyan, Free Methodist)

Lutheran / Reformed united church or joint mission

Lutheran

Mennonite, Anabaptist (Left Wing or Radical Reformation)

Methodist (mainline Methodist, United Methodist)

Moravian (Continental Pietist)

Nondenominational (no church or anti-church groups)

Oneness-Pentecostal or Unitarian-Pentecostal: Jesus Only

Baptistic-Pentecostal or Keswick-Pentecostal

Holiness-Pentecostal: 3-crisis-experience

Apostolic, or Pentecostal Apostolic (living apostles)

Pentecostal (Protestant; Classical Pentecostal)

Friends (Quaker)

Reformed, Presbyterian

Salvationist (Salvation Army)

United church (union of bodies of different traditions)

Waldensian

community church or union congregation

The largest of these out of 318 million total Protestants (year
1995 numbers for members, year 2000 numbers for denominations) are the Lutherans (61 million members, 253
denominations), next are Baptistic-Pentecostal/Keswick (49 million members, 396
denominations), followed by Baptists (48 million members, 322 denominations),
Reformed/Presbyterian (44 million members, 300 denominations), Methodists (23 million
members, 123 denominations), United church (22 million members, 54
denominations), Lutheran/Reformed united
(15 million members, 24 denominations), and various Adventist groups (11 million
members, 218 denominations).
From these are formed nearly 9000 Protestant Christian
denominations. Someone might complain about the "Oneness"
groups being included since they reject the Holy Trinity (one God in
three distinct Persons) and the historic
Creeds, but that's how Barrett's Encyclopedia categorizes them, for whatever reason.

The "Marginal Christian" groups include
Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, various "Arian" or pseudo-Christian cults, some Christian science or "mind science" cults,
some Unitarian/Universalist groups, and tiny numbers of so-called
Christian or Catholic "Gnostics." These break down this way:

Christadelphian

apocalyptic, eschatological (i.e. "end times"
Christians)

Divine Science

Gnostic, esoteric, anthroposophical

Holy Spirit Association for Unification of World Christianity

Jehovah's Witnesses (or "Russellites")

Latter-day Saints (Mormons), including Mormon schismatics

Liberal Catholic (Theosophical, Masonic, Gnostic)

schism from Orthodox, in marginal direction

Paulician, Bogomil

metaphysical science or "Divine/Religious Science"

Spiritualist, Spiritist, psychic, occult

Swedenborgian (Church of the New Jerusalem; spiritualistic)

Theosophist, Theosophical, synthesist

Unitarian, Universalist, Free Christian, Liberal Christian

From
these are formed nearly 1600 "denominations." The largest of
these (year 1995 members, year 2000 denominations) are the JWs (11 million members, 226
denominations), next are the Mormons (8 million members, 122
denominations), and far behind are the "metaphysical" science
cults (1.1 million members, 59 denominations), etc. I'll agree
most of these are very borderline "Christian." They
might refer to "Jesus Christ" and use the Bible in their
"worship services" but for the most part they reject the historic Creeds
and Councils of Christendom (Nicene, Athanasian, Ephesus, Chalcedon, etc).
However, the numbers here are small compared with the numbers of Independent and
Protestant denominations.

This is an even smaller group of
"denominations" and these are broken down as follows:

Albanian/Greek-speaking Orthodox

Arabic or Arabic/Greek-speaking Orthodox

Armenian Orthodox (Gregorian)

Bulgarian Orthodox

Byelorussian / Belorussian (White Russian / White Ruthenian)

Coptic Orthodox

Czech / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox

Estonian Orthodox

Ethiopic, Ethiopian Orthodox, GeOez-speaking

Finnish / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox

Georgian Orthodox

Greek Orthodox

Hungarian / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox

Latvian Orthodox

Macedonian Orthodox

Moldavian Orthodox

Assyrian or Nestorian (East Syrian, Messihaye Christians)

Polish / Slavonic-speaking Orthodox

Romanian Orthodox

Russian Orthodox

Serbian Orthodox

Slovak Orthodox

Syro-Malabarese (Eastern Syrian), Syriac/Malayalam-speaking

Syrian, Syriac-speaking Orthodox or Syro-Antiochian

Ukrainian Orthodox

The largest of these are the Russian Orthodox at 80 million
members of
the 210 million total members (year 1995 numbers). So it is within these
groups, mainly separated by country or nationality, you get 781 Orthodox
"denominations" (year 2000 numbers).

Now for the "Roman Catholic" denominations. These
appear to be broken down by various rites:

Armenian (Eastern-rite Catholic)

Bulgarian (Byzantine rite)

Byzantine-rite (jurisdiction for more than one ethnic group)

Chaldean (Eastern Syrian rite)

Coptic (Alexandrian rite)

Ethiopic (Alexandrian rite)

Greek (Byzantine rite)

Hungarian (Byzantine rite)

Italo-Albanian (Byzantine rite)

Jurisdiction for both Latin-rite and Eastern-rite Catholics

Latin-rite Catholic

Malankara (Syro-Antiochian, Eastern Syrian), Syro-Malankarese

Maronite (Syro-Antiochian, Western Syrian)

Melkite (Byzantine, Greek Catholic; Arabic-speaking)

plural Oriental (jurisdiction for several Eastern rites)

Romanian Byzantine rite

Russian (Byzantine rite)

Ruthenian (Byzantine rite)

Slovak (Byzantine rite)

Syro-Malabarese (Eastern Syrian)

Syrian, Syriac-speaking (Syro-Antiochian, West Syrian)

Ukrainian Byzantine rite

From these western and smaller eastern rites the encyclopedia gets 242
"Roman Catholic denominations" (year 2000 numbers). The
largest is by far the Latin-rite (commonly called "Roman
Catholics" by non-Catholic Christians) with 976 million members of the 994
million total members (or 98% of the total, year 1995
numbers). However, since virtually all of these western and smaller eastern rites are in union with
the Pope (I am not sure of some of them), there is actually one
Catholic Church, not 242 churches or denominations. Based on the encyclopedia's own
definition of "denomination" the editors appear to be separating
and counting by country which is how you get to 242 (or 238
countries plus 4) "denominations" of Roman Catholics. The Catholic
Church in Canada is not a different "denomination" from the Catholic
Church in the U.S., which is not a different Catholic Church from the
one in England, etc. If you search the available "World Christian
Database" online,
there is indeed one
Catholic Church in the U.S.A., (see also Barrett, Encyclopedia,
volume 1, page 783 for the U.S.A.) and in the world there
are indeed 238 "Roman Catholic" denominations (for exactly
238 countries), i.e. one Catholic Church for each country. The same "counting by country" seems to be the
case with some of the denominations in the other mega-blocs.

When dividing these "denominations" by country as they do,
there are definitely some problems in figuring out the true total
"denominations" since many of them are being counted more than
once -- and in fact 241 times too much in the case of
"Roman Catholic" denominations. Barrett's Encyclopedia
states this explicitly:

'As a statistical unit in
this Encyclopedia, a 'denomination' always refers to one single
country. Thus the Roman Catholic Church,
although a single organization, is described here as consisting of 236
denominations in the world's 238 countries.'
(Barrett, et al, World Christian Encyclopedia, volume 1, page
27, in the "Glossary" under definition for
"Denomination" [later updated to 242], emphasis
added)

The vast majority of this projected "growth" in
denominations are due to Protestants (another 500+
denominations added from 2000 to 2025) and Independents (another 20,000+
denominations added from 2000 to 2025). See Barrett's Encyclopedia, Table
1-5, pages 16-18.

Here is a diagram of Major branches within Christianity (courtesy of
Wikipedia) :

Thank you for your inquiry. I can assure you that the figure of
39,000 is in no way inflated. This number represents our most current,
up-to-date data. As we are constantly updating this figure, it is not
published in print form. The figure of 33,800 from the year 2000 was
printed in our book World Christian Trends, (Pasadena, CA:
William Carey Library, 2001). Part 12 of World Christian Trends (WCT),
Table 12-1 gives figures of denominational totals for all 238 countries
of the world. These figures are also represented graphically in WCT on
page 917, Global Map 14. The definition for denominations used in WCT,
and also in our publication World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford,
2001) is as follows:

"Any agency consisting of a number of congregations or
churches voluntarily aligning themselves with it. As a statistical
unit in this survey, a 'denomination' always refers to one single
country. Thus the Roman Catholic Church, although a single
organization, is described here as consisting of 236 denominations in
the world's 238 countries."

More precise listings of denominations can be found in the World
Christian Encyclopedia, under the article for each country. These
lists are not exhaustive, as there are too many small denominations to
list separately, but they should help give a clearer picture.
Furthermore, the Southern Baptist Convention has over 40,000
congregations in the US alone; not to mention the Baptist General
Conference, Baptist Bible Fellowship International, etc. So we are
definitely not counting each congregation as its own denomination. We
are also not lumping all Baptists into a single denomination, but
counting each organization separately. I hope this information helps.

Justin J. Evans
Research Assistant
Center for the Study of Global Christianity